LUTHER BURBANK 
On Mr. Burbank’s experiment farm there 
grows, today, this same teosinte grass which the 
Indians found. 
It bears tiny ears with two rows of corn-like 
kernels, on a cob the thickness of a lead pencil, 
and two and a half to four inches long—slightly 
less in length and diameter than an average head 
of wheat. 
From its earlier stage of pod corn, in which 
each kernel grew in a separate husk like wheat, 
teosinte represented, no doubt, a hard fought 
survival and adaptation like that of the flowering 
violet. 
And when the Indians came into its environ- 
ment it responded to their influence as the pansy 
responded to care and cultivation in its new 
dooryard home. 
Where teosinte had formerly relied upon the 
frosts to loosen up the ground for its seed, it found 
in the Indians a friend who crudely but effectively 
scratched the soil and doubled the chance for its 
baby plant to grow. 
Where it had been choked by plant enemies, 
and starved for air and sunlight by weeds, it found 
in the Indians a friend who cut down and kept off 
its competitors. 
Where it had been often destroyed by the 
animals before its maturity, it found the selfish 
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